The Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, has publicized that advancing the communication system in Ghana is the vision of the National Communications Authority as they seek to enforce laws to identify owners of the subscriber identification module (SIM) cards and effectively track and halt illegal activities such as “SIM box fraud.”

SIM box fraud is an illegal scheme that allows for the diversion of international calls into local ones. The act has been employed by Ghanaians and their international partners who route international calls through the Internet and terminate them on local mobile phone numbers to attract local charges.

According to the Ghana Telecommunications Chamber, the state loses more than GH¢3 million every month to SIM box fraud.

“Improving the communication experience of Ghanaians is the vision of the NCA day in, day out and consumers are growing more and more dependent on the Internet as a means of communication and as a link to other resources for everyday life,” Mrs Owusu Ekuful told the regulators.

She gave the assurance in a speech read on her behalf by her deputy, Mr George Andah, at the 19th Council of African Regulators Meeting in Accra yesterday.

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The NCA has made it a mandate to register all SIM cards in the country by June 2020, an exercise to sanitize the telecommunication space that will also help to combat cyber-crime to help bring trust into the sector “which is now the backbone for other social services to ride on”.

Apart from the monthly loss, activities of the fraudsters had also led to a decline in International Direct Dialing (IDD) revenue from as high as GH¢222 million in 2012 to about GH¢56 million, which is projected for the end of 2019, a 74 per cent reduction.

The Head of the Cyber Crime Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Dr. Gustav Yankson revealed that within the last two weeks alone the joint effort by the Cyber Crime Unit and the Ghana Telecommunications Chamber had resulted in raids at different locations within Accra, in the course of which four adults were arrested, while two others were on the run.